"The problem [with society] isn't too few laws and regulations but too many. Human history consists of a strong and unrestrained pressure to convert output into structure. The structure may at first be useful, but eventually it merely exists for its own sake, and after a while grows far beyond necessity, even beyond endurance.

Sometimes there are such rapid gains in output that the structure can't stifle them; but slowly it continues to increase, to regulate, and to control. Examples are the various Industrial Revolutions and the most recent was the Computer Revolution."

-Jerry Pournelle